European Ethnicity and Tennis

I am watching- The Australian Open! Oh happy day. Also, it's Martin Luther King Day tomorrow and so we here in America all have the day off. Nice. I can stay up late drinking and watching tennis. We are watching Ivanovic. Rick Rock said, talking about Ghengis Khan, Ivanovic has that Slavic Ghengis Khan thing for sure. Then he said, she could be your sister. Now, we often make sort of off colored jokes about the ethnicity of the middle and further European players because I am half from that part of the world, and I am allowed to make jokes about myself and my "people". But really, Safina's eyes? The way they are so almond shaped, not to mention her round face? Myskina? (I miss her, and damn, she was so part Eskimo, or part Ghengis Khan.) And then back to Safina. Even though I think she has some serious Ghengis Khan in her, she is such a Viking! Big scary Barbarians wearing furs over their bodies and wierd hats that had horns on it stampeding over the earth! She's part that. But she has, what Rick Rock refers to, as hybrid vigor. (He raised beef cattle. He refers to me as someone who has "hybrid vigor".) Anyway, Jankovic and Ivanovic have the middle European Slavic part-Asian thing, too!

By the way, Ivanovic's toss on her serve? It is a stress related thing and I feel for her. She needs to go back to her hotel room and toss a ball over and over again. Poor girl. Not fun.

I lift weights with a trainer. A few days ago, my trainer said, are you tan? She was looking at my legs. I said, no not really, I am a Slav. She looked confused. I said, I was at the beach in November for a week, but look. I stuck out my leg and we looked at it. It is very brown, two months later. I said, I hold my tan forever because I am part Slav. I said, you know, Ghengis Khan? And she looked straight at me with this look of amazement and said, You're part Asian! No one- I repeat no one- has ever said anything like that to me- because I am quite tall, blonde, blue-eyed and so forth- but I was like, Yeah! I am part Asian! And I am. Because Ghengis Khan trampled all over the middle of Europe and created wierd hybrids like me, Safina, Myskina, and Jankovic and Ivanovic. When I, rarely, don't have a "tan" (because I hold it forever), my skin has a greenish hue to it, a darkness, waiting to get all Ghengis Khany the minute the sun says hello.

Anyway, it looks really hot in Australia. Some people handle that heat better than others. I, like my Eskimo forebears, don't. I like cold better. Like, I feel, the majority of the Russian players. I feel the Russians don't generally fare well in Australia. But we'll see. I am ready for people to prove me wrong on this.

All this means, we see some big old Viking looking Russian player, but hey, she has more in common with Na Li than we generally understand. Just thinking.

Yours Truly,
Paula